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Can border agents search your laptop? Yes.

A new court ruling reaffirms that US customs agents can search the contents of …

Stuart Romm boarded a plane in Las Vegas on February 1, 2004. When he got off the plane in British Columbia, Canada's Border Services Agency stopped Romm for questioning. After learning that Romm had a criminal background, Agent Keith Brown searched his laptop and discovered child porn sites in Romm's Internet history list. Canada then bundled Romm back onto a plane to Seattle, where US Customs agents had a chance to question him further.

They also conducted a forensic scan of his hard drive and turned up images of child pornography in Romm's browser cache. The images had been deleted (intentionally, it appears), but were recovered by an agent using software called "EnCase." Romm then admitted to investigators that he used Google to search for child pornography, and that his "therapy" had failed to help him quit.

The case made its way to a Nevada court, which found Romm guilty. An appeal of the case went to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, which was charged with deciding an important issue: can border patrol agents search laptops without a warrant and without probable cause? The court's ruling was handed down on Monday, and said that yes, agents can search laptops for any reason.

The court argued that the forensic analysis fell under the "border search exception to the warrant requirement." This exception was established by United States v. Montoya de Hernandez in 1985, and says that "the government may conduct routine searches of persons entering the United States without probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or a warrant." The court goes on to note that international airports count as border terminals, even if not physically located on a US border.

This isn't an especially radical ruling (Customs agents already have the authority to search luggage without cause), and such searches are taking place in other countries as well. Searching laptops, with their vast troves of personal (and usually legal) data, might feel more invasive to travelers, but it's a part of life in the 21st century. Don't be surprised if, on your next business trip, submitting your laptop to an X-ray scan is no longer enough.